Prof. Dr. Naili Farida, M.Si (Professor of the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Diponegoro University) and Prof. Vincent Didiek Wiet Aryanto, Ph.D. (Professor of Dian Nuswantoro University) presented as guest speakers in the Guest Lecture event held by the Department of Business Administration FISIP Undip with the theme “Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Branding Strategy”. The event was moderated by dr. Ngatno, M.M. (Lecturer of the Department of Business Administration Undip), on Tuesday (17/5).
“The advantages of selling in the marketplace namely visitors or potential buyers are available, the category of goods is super complete, being the first destination for online buyers, is provided with the most complete online selling facility, is safe and easy to manage, and fast payments are available to sellers. Meanwhile, the weakness is that the more people sell, the more difficult it is for our shop to be seen and the higher the competition is. If you want to appear in front page, you have to advertise or pay,” said Prof. Vincent.
He also conveyed several ways for online SMEs to penetrate the global market, including becoming a seller on the Global eCommerce platform, for example on Alibaba Group (Alibaba.com, Inamall.tmall.hk, Aliexpress), Ebay Global, Amazon Marketplace, and Etsy. The SMEs actors can also sell directly to the target market country through Facebook Pages and FB Ads, Instagram and IG Ads, websites and Google, as well as email marketing. Meanwhile, the coping strategy is changing the way of thinking, capturing new opportunities in the midst of limitations and challenges, as well as being enthusiastic, tenacious, and never giving up.
Prof. Dr. Naili Farida, M.Sc. discussed “The Implementation of Communal Branding at Batik Bakaran SME in Pati”. According to her, it is difficult to market the Bakaran Wetan and Bakaran Kulon batik products with cheap selling prices. The products do not yet have a trademark, so the products are categorized as commodity products.
“In the Republic of Indonesia Law Number 15 of 2001 concerning Marks, it is explained that a mark is a sign in the form of an image, name, word, letters, numbers, color arrangement or a combination of elements that have distinguishing features and are used in trading goods or services,” she explained.
“While Communal Branding is the concept of a specialized brand community and has a bond that is not based on geographical ties, but rather is based on a set of social relationship structures among fans of a particular brand,” concluded Prof. Naili. (Lin – Public Relations)
